


together we have fallen

by One_Day



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Hi i love these two but they make me cry, Light Angst, Not Canon Compliant, Phila lives, ambiguous setting, there's no real resolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 17:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12347355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_Day/pseuds/One_Day
Summary: She had always wanted to take the queen flying on her pegasus, when she could.She would have chosen any day.





	together we have fallen

Beside Phila, Emmeryn fidgets with something on her knees. Not an odd gesture -- the kind hearted exalt had been known to be quite unable to sit still as a child, possessing in secret an energetic nature that rivalled that of Chrom, or even Lissa’s. Still, Phila glances over. 

Having presently become aware of the other woman’s curiosity, Emmeryn holds up the object.  
It is a sun-bleached bird skull, delicate and pale as the long fingers that hold them.

“May I see it?” Phila asks, even though she doesn't have to, and Emmeryn nods of course, letting her possession tumble gently from her palms.

The ridges along the eye sockets and the base of the skull feel rough like teeth on her skin. But the lightness of it, the tiny curves along the beak, the fragile sweep across the cranium where downy feathers might have been, somehow render it not in the slightest bit macabre.

She turns it over in her hand, tests the point of the beak and the edge of the bone, the way she would have done for her spear years ago. Beautiful.

“You know, it conjures to my mind an image of flight,” says Emmeryn, softly, at once as transfixed with the skull as Phila is, but her gaze seemingly distant. Lost in the dreams of some feeling, Phila imagines.

And part of her is a bit regretful, she supposes. She had always wanted to take the queen flying on her pegasus, when she could. To disappear into the sky and have the rushing wind brush away her need for thought, for control. But duty had called (as it always did) and young as she was then, Phila had been daunted by the court advisors’ chastisement that such an act would be highly inappropriate, not to mention dangerous, unbefitting of the to-be queen and did she not intend on keeping her position as the captain of the Ylissean pegasus knights? Simply absurd.

To hell with what they thought. She was young and should’ve done it anyway, position and etiquette be damned.

She should’ve chosen a sunny day in the spring, where they could fly high above the colorful, crowded markets. Where the stretch of sky seemed endless and Emmeryn would braid her hair tightly with a blue ribbon to keep it from tangling, and Phila could close her eyes in the wind, fearing naught of storm nor sea, and trusting wholly upon the majestic, winged creature whose life she had built hers upon.

She should’ve picked a rainy day. Just a light mist, though, her steed’s powerful form cutting through the haze, water droplets sluicing off feathers with ease. And when the rejuvenating chill strayed too close to unbearable, they would turn to the castle again. Phila would have laughed at how Emmeryn’s hair began to frizz up with the moisture when she steadied her liege, returning her to the earth, back to the familiar brick pavement or to the grass beneath her feet.

She should’ve, she should’ve, she should’ve, she should’ve! She should have done so many more dauntless, free, wonderful things! Wonderful things to make Emmeryn laugh out loud as if she were just a normal girl in a sundress and set a bass-like vibration thrumming low in Phila’s own chest. After all, she was younger then, stronger, could hold a spear without trembling hands, no scars across shoulders and along thighs to haunt her every move, scars caused not just by arrows but by the speed of falling.

That’s an experience that they both understand.

She shifts uncomfortably and hands the bird skull (that precious, hopeful, fragile thing) back to her exalt, who tucks it away. Emmeryn’s arms, she knows, are not spattered with scars. Her skin is pale and soft (it is just the slightest bit unnatural).

“Oh, Phila,” Emmeryn whispers, “It was not my intent to prod at old wounds, but if I have, I apologize.”

How is she not afraid?

(Though that is not quite an accurate question; Phila _knows_ her lady is afraid, that she remembers the incident in the blistering desert sun all too clear, that she wakes up with night terrors, clutching at her bedsheets and at Phila as if she is still sinking, through the downy white pillows and through the mattress, the panels of the wood floor opening up to swallow her whole.)

(She is so very afraid.)

But she does not show it. Not in the light of day.

“No...No, it’s just that I had wanted to take you flying one day.” Phila shakes her head slightly and rolls her hands into a ball in her lap. Another pair of hands, less worn, find hers. She is grateful for something to hold. “I would have, truly, had it not been for...certain unexpected circumstances.”

Emmeryn just nods sadly. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't planning on writing this but then I had...A Feeling.


End file.
